New Brunswick man sentenced to 27 months for check-kiting scheme

Star-Ledger file photo U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, shown in this file photo, said Amro Badran ran his scheme by causing checks to be written against accounts that lacked enough funds to cover the checks.

NEW BRUNSWICK — An accountant and part-time real estate developer from New Brunswick was sentenced to 27 months in prison Friday for a check-kiting scheme that defrauded two banks out of $1.5 million, federal authorities said.

Amro Badran, 54, pleaded guilty in December to one count of bank fraud before U.S. District Judge Freda L. Wolfson in Trenton. In imposing sentence, Wolfson ordered Badran to pay $1.5 million in restitution.

Badran ran his scheme from about June 2006 to August 2008, according to a court documents. Authorities said he opened about 15 bank accounts at New Millennium Bank and Brunswick Bank & Trust to help pull off the fraud.

Citing a court document and statements in court, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said Friday that Badran ran his scheme by causing checks to be written against accounts that lacked enough funds to cover the checks. Badran then deposited the checks into other accounts he controlled to artificially inflate the balances of those accounts, Fishman said.

In pleading guilty late last year, authorities said, Badran admitted he took the proceeds of fraudulent checks to pay personal and business expenses and to transfer money to other accounts he controlled.

In all, authorities said, Badran deposited more than $25 million in bad checks written against his various accounts.

When the banks discovered the fraud, authorities said, they returned the checks for insufficient funds and charged the accounts, thus collapsing the "check kite." The result, authorities explained, was accounts were left overdrawn and the banks lost the money.